Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I guess having electricity when you need it is sooooo last century … UK families will have to get used to “only using power when it was available”. That constant electricity at home was dangerous anyhow, the unending hum of the wires can drive a man so insane that the only way to cure him is to make him head of the National Grid …
UK persons … comments?
w.
[Update, for those who believe the above is a faked article, I had Green Sand send me a photo and another scan of the actual newspaper. ~ ctm]
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John Brignell commented about it a few days ago on his March 2011 Numberwatch
Eloquent commentary on the overall situation in (the not-so-Great) Britain can be found at The Grumpy Old Sod and Richard North’s EU Referendum blog.
Frederick Davies says: If you think those comments are nuts, just check the mess the Germans ACTUALLY DID with their petrol:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14888490,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
So they are selling E-10? That’s an issue? I’ve run “gasohol” and “E-10” and “Agrol” and all the other names it’s been called on and off since about 1970. No problem.
FWIW, a large number of stations in the USA sell E-10 and all there is is a tiny sticker on the pump saying “may contain up to 10% ethanol”. I generally seek it out as it has a lower tendency to ping in my high compression engines; besides, it smells a lot nicer when you are fueling the car 😉
For a long time it was 76 stations that had it most. Now it’s more widely around.
FWIW, I once ran a lawn mower on Methanol (MUCH more “corrosive” than any ethanol mix including 100% ethanol) for several years. Never did have a problem with it. (just turn the fuel mix screw out a little bit on the old Briggs and Stratton). Eventually replaced it with an electric mower ( I’ve now been through 3 or 4 of them and wish I’d kept the old gas / alcohol one..) after the starter pull thingy broke for the second time. Should have just fixed it again…
At any rate, per E-10: After running the stuff preferentially for about 40 years I have to say that I just don’t see much problem with it. Even in “fine German Autos” like my Mercedes SL with V-8 that just loves the stuff.
The above article quotes an interview he gave on BBC Radio 4. The clip that I have found on the BBC web site, doesn’t include anything constant electricity being a thing of the past.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9410000/9410485.stm
Wind-power generation on a cold day in Alberta
March 1, 2011 was a very cold day in Alberta
(Full Story, including graphs)
General question to the Greeners:
If we tax ourselves into the ground and can’t afford to heat our homes, run our cars, or use our computers, how are we going to “invest in the future”?
So postnormal. Next they’ll be claiming he used to work for Exxon with all that implies.
Arthur Dent says:
March 4, 2011 at 1:26 pm
I didn’t quote anyone. I posted a scan of a newspaper.
If you want to slice the salami that thin, sure. No matter how thin you slice it, however, it’s difficult to use power when it’s not available.
So your claim is that this all has nothing to do with the rolling blackouts that are impending for the UK? Or what? I don’t see the difference you’re pointing to. THE UK IS RUNNING OUT OF POWER. There’s two choices. Increase production, or “get used to using power when it was available”. I’d take the first one, and scream like hell about the second, but I’m not UKish, I’m a cowboy …
Your desire to quibble over the exact wording of the latter choice is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The problem is not the exact description of an unpleasant second choice. It is that you have failed to replace aging power plants. Now your masters want you to alter your habits (regardless of the wording you prefer) to cover their failure to maintain adequate production.
And you want to bust me? Bro’, I’m just the messenger, just the finger pointing at the moon. You’re running out of power … how about you discuss that instead of nitpicking about sematics and telling us about how to balance the load against the generation? I don’t care how smart your grid is, that can’t overcome human stupidity in betting on wind and solar. The grid can help, but it can’t generate a single watt. And it is the generation of those watts that is your problem.
w.
“Englanders” are not alone:
Borrowing from DirkH’s comment on P Gosselin’s NoTricksZone Blog:
Hmmm … well, as a former Brit whose family was kind enough to bring her with them when they emigrated to Canada half a century ago, all I can say is that perhaps Holliday is bound and determined to get a “head start” on the implementation of Pachauri’s “vision” for AR5.
[excerpt]
“Equity, Fairness, Sustainable Development and Life Style Changes: Problems of collective action, or public good problems that may overlap with various parallel challenges, can only be solved if the solution is considered to be fair and based on adequate equity principles. In general, the equity principle has to be applied to inter- and intra-generational justice as a prerequisite for sustainable development as well as lifestyle changes.”
(With sincere apologies to William Blake)
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And could they have ‘er foreseen
The blight of high satanic ‘mills
Whose darkness fills
England’s once green and pleasant land.
I can tell you what’s happening already from an Australian point of view.
The brightest and the best are coming to Australia in their droves. People from all sectors of the economy, financial, banking, tradesman. Heck, even many of our news presenters (on the ABC ofcourse) have pommy accents.
And the poor Irish, so many of their young are coming over to work in the mines, electricians, plumbers, brickies plasterers etc etc.
The only ones NOT coming over from the old dart are their immigrant/refugee populations. She may well end up being Englandistan.
This article is total bollux ……. We get all our electricity from France ….. Viva La EDF !!!
That is why it costs us so much.
Well we come to the divide;
either this:
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
or maybe this:
http://nunes.house.gov/_files/SummaryoftheEnergyRoadmap0.pdf
http://nunes.house.gov/_files/EnergyRoadmapTrifold_2011.pdf
Insanity or sanity. 2012 is coming; where you puttin’ yer money, bro?
The falacy of the “smart grid” is that folks don’t have “smart appliances” nor do they have “smart schedules”.
Most folks do the laundry when the clothes are dirty and they have time off work.
Most folks eat dinner at, well, dinnertime.
Most folks run the heater when it is cold outside and the A/C when it is hot outside.
Most folks take their shower in the morning before work, or on return home after work (depending on nature of trade and preference).
Very few folks do their laundry, shower, or eat dinner at 3 AM.
Very few folks avoid heat when it is most cold and A/C when it is most hot.
These simple facts seem to not be evident. Why escapes me at the moment…
BTW, we had something similar in California for a decade or so under governor Gray(out) Davis. He decided we ought to buy all our power on the “spot” market. The best description of this I’ve seen was from the commedian Dennis Miller who described it as “buying all your electricity at mini-bar prices”. The result was Enron who came into existence to “game” the broken system built by Grayout Davis and Loony Left friends.
The end game was “rolling blackouts” in California just about every time power demand was peaking. Several times a season, the power would just stop. (The local utilities were FORBIDDEN to own generation OR to enter long term reliable delivery contracts… yeah, that’s smart…)
I ended up with 2 generators ( A 1 kW Honda that I love for most of the time and a 4 kW Monster that I hated as it was way loud, but let me run A/C, washer, dryer, dishwasher, etc. all at the same time) along with sundry small UPS devices on all the things you didn’t want to take a power failure (clocks, video recorders, main light in the room). I also collected a few micro-inverters to give minimal power from the car, as desired.
A few years later we sacked the Governor (and got the “married to a Kennedy RINO Governator”…) and things returned to “power when you want it”.
Now, with the retreadding of Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown; I’m regretting the sale of the 4 kW monster….
I really liked it a lot better when the Evil Utility Monopoly was in charge. Power was cheaper and more reliable then…
I suggest the Honda generator and the “minimal power” kit in the link above… I’ve “lived the dream” of government “controlled” electricity (or nightmare or…)
Bob(Sceptical Redcoat) says:
March 4, 2011 at 1:22 pm
“… I propose that England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales each apply to become the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th states of the USA, respectively. Any seconders?”
That will still put us three shy of the 57 that our prez thinks we already have.
”The days of permanently available electricity may be coming to an end, the head of the power network said yesterday. […] We keep thinking that we want it to be there and to provide power when we need it. It is going to be much smarter than that. […] We are going to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available”
Utterly outrageous. This Mr. Holliday should be fired immediately.
It was in 1959, I can vividly remember. I was five and sat on the firelog chest in a candle lit kitchen in the late afternoon, my Grandma at the fireplace, her face reflecting the flames from below. It was one of the frequent blackouts of the time, three years after the bloodbath of the revolution, inflicted by a ferocious Soviet army, the economy still in ruins. She was talking about the old days when she first met electricity. It was 1905, she was five and the town of Deva, Transylvania where she lived in her childhood just switched from gas lighting to electric streetlights “glowing like the light of Heavens”.
To get an idea how it must have felt, have a look at a painting of Csontváry Kosztka Tivadar, one of the greatest painters ever.
Elecric power plant in Jajce at night (Bosnia, 1902)
“Charles Higley says:
March 4, 2011 at 10:38 am
…
the government is a bunch of stupid idiots with the brains of a cabbage.
…”
Sir! you cast a slur upon the cabbages of the world. 🙂
Arthur Dent says:
March 4, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Arthur Dent? Not THE Arthur Dent! The one that Trillian gave the heave to the instant she could, and that Zaphod considered about as dumb as ever existed? The one who insisted on boiling leaves in water which nearly caused that genius computer to crash? Thanks, Arthur, but I think there’s a Vogon Constructor Fleet about to bore through your neighborhood. Remember to carry a towel! You’ll need it.
One of the euphemisms that one hears is “load management”.
Newspeak for rationing. Rationing as a result of a war on common sense.
The unending hum he was hearing wasn’t from wires. It was caused by his ungrounded brain.
Cutting carbon emissions by 80% let’s see…
Keeping the same power plants in place…
That could be like just under 5 hours of electricity a day.
Come on we can all do this if we try. You just gotta believe…
One hour of power at home in the morning…
One hour of power at home in the evening…
and 2hours and 48 minutes at work.
That would make a hefty 14 hour work week…
Yeah, that’s gonna work just fine… /sarc.
I can see a solution to this. Slow combustion syngas generators running on dried biomass producing H2 and CO to be fed to small four stroke generators. Cars have been run on wood chips with this system. The problems with continuous biomass feed can be solved by producing standardised pellets. These could be produced by a local cooperative and sold as garden mulch thus avoiding fuel taxes. It would only take a few thousand households to install such as system for the government to take notice,.
Given that the AGW hoax is about increased control and taxation, thousands setting an example by going off grid and escaping energy control and taxation would show the government the eventual futility of their CO2 legislation. In such an environment the only way to keep people from going off grid would be to provide continuous reliable grid power. That means coal, gas and nuclear power.
There is much to be learned from the failure of prohibition in America. Micro generation and bootleg power could be the start of the anti kleptocracy revolution. Syngas can even be converted to liquid fuels through the Fischer–Tropsch process. Bootleg petrol? There will be a man with a van doing the rounds. licence plate YAD 061…
In a nutshell
“I’m from the government I am NOT here to help”
Charles Higley says:
People in 3rd world countries and many cities and towns in the Middle East have power only so many hours a day…..
+++++++
Jimbo said:
As for the poor in Nepal and Mongolia it is something they have geared themselves for.
+++++++
The power is always on in Mongolia. Don’t know why, but it is. Many poor people struggle to heat their ‘gers’ with coal, not electricity though. The heat downtown is from the power station (Soviet style) raising the system efficiency of the antiquated design far above electric generation efficiency in the West. Many cold cities in Central Asia have these combined heat and power (CHP) systems.
New developments in domestic coal stoves (for gers/yurts) have reduced coal consumption per day by 50% and PM emissions by 99%, nuch cleaner than coal-fired power plants. It was not until recently that some foreign group forced a wind farm onto the population but fortunately it was paid for by the foreigners. The poor will of course eventually have to pay more to run their TV and light (singular) to feed the windmill owners.
Other than that things are getting better all the time.
Interesting.
Something is amiss with this story .Why can I not find the original link from the Telegraph and why is article only presented as a cut-n-pasty sort of thing.Maybe I am
not looking for the article correctly.Skeptical minds want to know.
Al Gored said:
“BLYTHE, Calif. — Native Americans are clashing with the federal government over plans to fast-track approval and construction of massive solar energy projects that the Indians fear will harm sacred and culturally significant sites in Western deserts.”
I doubt there is anything “sacred” about their opposition to wind farms. They just want to be paid off, big time, like with cassinos.